Azeri Finance Ministry uncovers widespread misuse of public funds

ANS TV, Baku
21 Nov 04

Presenter The 12.5bn manats 2.6m dollars of budget funds misspent in
19 districts of the republic could have been used for solving social
problems in hundreds of villages.

Correspondent over video of a man in office Cavansir Yusifov, head of
the financial monitoring department of the Finance Ministry, has told
ANS that over the last 10 months of 2004, financial violations have
been uncovered mainly in Xocali, Xocavand, Susa, Haciqabul, Davaci,
Beylaqan, Ucar, Saki, Tartar, Agstafa and Qazax Districts. Much of
the public funds were misused in the education, health, culture and
forestry spheres in these districts. There were also cases when public
funds were misspent under the guise of renovation work. It has been
established that 38m manats 7,800 dollars were misused in Haciqabul
District central Azerbaijan alone.

There were serious violations in the use of 100m manats 20,000 dollars
in the education sphere in the town of Xocali. It has been uncovered
that public funds were misused mainly in the education field in
Susa and Xocali Districts which are under Armenian occupation. The
cases of misuse are related to the number of lessons and extra jobs
at schools. Another violation of the law was related to accountants
artificially increasing salaries.

Cavansir Yusifov said that 3.5bn manats 714,000 dollars of the misused
12.5bn manats have already been returned to the budget. As for the
remaining 9bn manats, Mr Yusifov said that evidence regarding several
cases has been submitted to the law-enforcement bodies. He said that
it would be impossible to return all the remaining funds since they
have been paid as salaries in some districts.

Employees have already received that money. It is already impossible to
get the money back, end quote. The Ministry of Finance has dismissed
nine people directly responsible for spending public funds and
85 people will receive an administrative punishment, he said. Mr
Yusifov added that inspections are under way in the financial
departments of Ismayilli, Salyan, Neftcala, Kurdamir, Samux and
Zaqatala Districts. The executive authorities in 14 districts will
also be inspected by the end of the year, he said.